


Start and end with family

by megyal



Category: Fall Out Boy
Genre: Fluff, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-11-27
Updated: 2008-11-27
Packaged: 2017-11-14 21:37:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,166
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/519770
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/megyal/pseuds/megyal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Written for the <span class="ljuser i-ljuser"><a href="http://thebigexchange.livejournal.com/profile"><img class="i-ljuser-userhead"/></a><a class="i-ljuser-username" href="http://thebigexchange.livejournal.com/"><b>thebigexchange</b></a></span>'s November Challenge, using a prompt from <span class="ljuser i-ljuser"></span><a href="http://sweetnovicane.livejournal.com/profile"><img class="i-ljuser-userhead"/></a><a class="i-ljuser-username" href="http://sweetnovicane.livejournal.com/"><b>sweetnovicane</b></a>: <i>Someone getting bombarded with children</i> (inspired by <a href="http://www.thedevilspanties.com/comics/20061206.jpg">this comic</a>).<br/></p>
    </blockquote>





	Start and end with family

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the [](http://thebigexchange.livejournal.com/profile)[**thebigexchange**](http://thebigexchange.livejournal.com/) 's November Challenge, using a prompt from [](http://sweetnovicane.livejournal.com/profile)[**sweetnovicane**](http://sweetnovicane.livejournal.com/): _Someone getting bombarded with children_ (inspired by [this comic](http://www.thedevilspanties.com/comics/20061206.jpg)).  
> 

Patrick really liked Thanksgiving. Great food, great friends and family, fun times. Who could ask for more? Not him, that's for sure. So when Pete Wentz said to him in an offhanded manner about four days after they met, "Oh, hey... Pat? Sorry, _Patrick_ , right... you want to come to my house for Thanksgiving? It's gonna be good," Patrick found it really hard to say no.

After all, he was only sixteen at the time, and _Pete Wentz_ was asking him over for Thanksgiving dinner. Come on, man. Come _on._

His mom was sufficiently disappointed until he told her that of _course_ he'd have Thanksgiving dinner at home, he'd be crazy _not_ to, but dinner at the Wentz house was later on in the evening.

"Oh, you're going to _Pete's_!" His mother had exclaimed, nodding. For some reason, she liked Pete a lot, from the moment Patrick had opened the door for him and Pete had spent about ten seconds just staring at Patrick, the way one would stare at an exotic animal at the zoo. He'd given her a polite hello, though, and mothers tended to like that shit. "Well, ok. As long as it's Pete."

Patrick had the sneaking suspicion that Pete could do something totally strange, like offer for Patrick's hand in marriage and his mom would be like, "Oh, as long as it's Pete."

"So this is your first Wentz Thanksgiving!" Joe said with great cheer when they pulled up in front of Pete's house. "Two words: don't panic."

"Ok. Wait... what?" Patrick asked, but Joe had already popped open the door of his dad's car and slid out into the crisp air. Patrick came out as well, gazing at Joe as he pushed open the little gate and went up to the front door. He turned and gave Patrick an enthusiastic wave.

"Come on!" he urged, knocking on the door. It was pulled open hastily, as if someone had been standing right behind it and just waiting for the opportunity to let it bang on the inside wall of the entryway. If that someone _had_ been waiting, then obviously that someone would have been Pete.

Which it was.

"Joe! Dude!" Pete shrieked and a cacophony of doggy-howls accompanied him. Patrick blinked and considered going back into Mr. Trohman's car. His reflexes were far too slow, for Pete's gaze landed on him and his wide grin became impossibly wider. "Patrick! Tricky! Trick-meister! Come on _dooowwwnnn_!"

"Technically, you won't be coming down," Joe advised as Patrick gingerly made his way up the narrow path to the front door. "But you get the point."

"Hi," Patrick said as soon as he was on the very top of the step, feeling very shy.

"Hey," Pete responded and shocked Patrick by putting his arms around him and hugging him. Patrick stood still, hardly breathing as Pete's hair tickled his nose. "Get inside, man," he said as he stepped back, impatiently waiting for Joe and Patrick to hang their jackets in the overstuffed closet before reaching one hand to grip Patrick's tightly. His hand was a little dry as he yanked Patrick inside the warm house, the pads of his fingers rough against Patrick's skin.

"Everybody," Pete yelled into the din that was his family. 'Everybody. This is Patrick."

"Patrick!" Everyone bellowed, as if they were practicing for an episode of _Cheers_. Patrick waved weakly and a couple dogs that looked large enough to be guarding the gates of hell came frolicking towards him.

"Aww," Pete said when the dogs leaped on Patrick, who gave a cry similar to a small child abandoned in the woods. "That's so cute, they like you!"

"Don't let the dogs eat the guests!" A lady was shouting. Patrick fended off the dogs' eager muzzles, and blinked gratefully as this same lady came to drag them away. "Peter!"

"They were only taking a nibble," Pete defended and helped her push the dogs in a random direction. "Mom, hey, _hey_. This is Patrick."

"I heard it over the loudspeaker the first time," Pete's mom said with a grin and grabbed Patrick into a warm hug; apparently, all Wentzes were huge fans of The Snuggle. "Oh, this is the infamous Patrick! Pete has told me so much about you."

"I hope they've all been good," Patrick answered with automatic politeness, because his own mother had taught him well.

"No." Her face was swathed with a mischievous smile, and _that's_ where Pete's smile came from, all large cheeks and bright eyes. "No, they've all been stories of horror."

"And dismemberment," Joe said, strolling by with a large cup of juice.

"And pain," this strange dude with wavy hair and tattoos put in, sidling past. Pete grabbed onto his inked arm, yanking him into the tight circle they'd made, Pete and Patrick and Pete's mom. "I need my hand to finish sending this text, man," the dude complained, eyes wryly amused behind his glasses.

"It can wait. Patrick, _this_! Is Andy Hurley." Pete motioned at Andy with Vanna White flourishes. Patrick gaped because, dude, _Andy Hurley_.

"Drummer, best there is," Mrs. Wentz said fondly before she moved off and Andy gave her a faint, but genuine smile.

"He's going to be _our_ drummer," Pete announced. Patrick continued his impersonation of a guppy, but Andy simply sighed, tucking his hair behind his ears.

"Pete--" he began in tones of one suffering under Pete's influence for far too long, but Pete overrode him completely.

"No excuses! Look at this _face_!" he exclaimed and Patrick realized belatedly that Pete was referring to _him_. " _Psst_ , Patrick, be adorable," Pete hissed out of the side of his mouth, as if Andy wasn't right there. Patrick scrunched up his nose in confusion and Pete grinned. " _Excellent_."

"Adorableness doesn't make a band," Andy said sternly and gave Patrick an apologetic grin. "Even if you _are_ very adorable."

Patrick felt his face burn. "Thanks?"

"You _will_ succumb to me," Pete vowed as Andy shook off his hand and ambled off. "One day, Hurley! One day!"

 

* * *

 

So, Pete was insane, that was obvious; an incontrovertible fact.

Patrick hadn't known that it was _hereditary_.

"Hello," a dark-haired woman said as Patrick perched nervously beside her in a dark sofa; he hadn't noticed she was there. He had been keeping a weather eye out for Pete, making sure he wasn't going to drag Patrick into some random familial spotlight. "Hey, are you Patrick?"

Patrick pondered telling her no.

"Yes," his traitorous mouth said. Damn his naturally honest nature.

"Oh, great!" the woman was grinning from ear to ear; she looked like an aunt, or some cousin. "Hold him for me, I won't be more than a minute."

Before Patrick could ask who _him_ might be, the woman plopped a very plump and very cross-looking baby in his lap.

_Oh no, I really can't_ , Patrick opened his mouth to tell her, _babies hate me_ , but the woman was pretty fast. She was gone before Patrick could make a sound.

The baby peered up at him suspiciously. Patrick peered back.

"Balruh," the baby informed him and reached for his glasses. Patrick did that neck-craning-backwards thing that all bespectacled folk have developed reflexively.

"No. No, no, no." Patrick grabbed the fat little fist as gently as he could. The baby suddenly grinned, a few teeth glinting in his upper gum and he kept trying.

"Hey! Okay, since you have Ben, just keep an eye on Freddie for me?" Someone said and before Patrick could even get a close look at who had spoken, another child was placed beside him.

"Wait. Look, um, I'm not really good, just," Patrick sputtered but only the babies were present to hear him. "Pete!" he tried, but Pete was literally rolling on the ground with laughter at something random over the other side of the packed living room. The second baby, Freddie, was trying to crawl towards the very edge of the sofa.

"Are you an uncle?" A small voice piped up from somewhere near Patrick's left ankle; with one hand fending off a baby-attack, and the other one trying to prevent a baby-cide, Patrick leaned over as far as he could to look down on the ground. A little boy with big brown eyes was lying casually on the carpet, his head almost on Patrick's foot; one leg propped up on the other upraised knee, hands behind his head as if he was at the beach... or attempting some lazy sit-ups, Patrick couldn't tell.

"What?" Patrick frowned at him. "Are you supposed to be lying there on the ground?"

"Naaah," the little boy told him with the bright and crazy grin of a Wentz. "I'm not s'posed to be on the ground, that's what Mommy told me, but I like the ground. Are you an uncle here?"

"I hope I never have to be," Patrick informed this ground-lover fervently. The ground-lover squinted up at him and for a moment, Patrick saw exactly how Pete might have been at that age, tussle-haired and mischievous.... just the same way he was now, only more with the hair-straightening action.

"You're _my_ uncle," the ground-lover announced loudly, and wriggled without dislodging his comfortably-aligned limbs so that his head was placed on Patrick's foot, using his Vans as a pillow.

"I don't think you should do that," Patrick told him. The kid sighed contentedly and appeared to fall asleep.

"This is so cute," Pete's mother said as she sailed past from the warm kitchen, holding a tray of food. "Vinnie, are you supposed to be on the ground?"

Vinnie snored loudly; Pete darted out of a knot of people to help his mother. She shook her head and smiled at him; Pete smiled back, a soft curl of his lips that was a little surprising, and then his glance fixed on a beset Patrick.

"Aww, that's so cute!" he exclaimed and grinned. Patrick hoped his glare was burning a hole in Pete's _face_ or something, but the effect was spoiled by the baby in his lap yanking one handle of his glasses down.

"How many times are you going to say that," Patrick gritted out, smiling painfully for Mrs. Wentz's benefit, barely seeing out of one eye. She beamed at him and then turned to frown, mock-seriously, at Pete.

"See, I wish my _eldest son_ would get down to business and look about my own grandchildren," Mrs. Wentz said. Pete made a face; she tweaked his nose and went into the dining room, where she was greeted with hungry roars.

"Come on, Mom," Pete whined at her retreating back. "I need a cute baby-momma to offset my cheeks." His glance snapped to Patrick again. "Hey! Patrick can be my baby-momma!"

_I'm going to kill him_ , Patrick concluded quite calmly in his mind and was surprised out of his contemplation of murder one when the other baby, the one who was persistently trying to roll off the sofa, suddenly stood up and staggered back towards Patrick. The baby (Freddie, if Patrick recalled correctly) leaned against him as if they were drinking buddies at a bar and pressed a drooly kiss to his cheek.

"Ew," Patrick groaned.

"SO CUTE!" Pete hollered. "Andy! Hey, Andy! Come look how cute Patrick is! Don't you want to be in a band this cute?"

"Leave me alone, I'm watching the game!" Andy yelled back. "And cute is totally not hardcore, okay? Just so you know."

"One day, Hurley!" Pete promised, shaking his fist in the direction of the TV room. "One day!"

Joe walked past to go towards the dining area; Patrick managed to free a hand and scrabbled after him with it, but Joe nimbly leapt out of his grasp.

"Oh no, dude," Joe said with a grin that was both huge and of the shit-eating variety. "I'm not gonna be trapped like last year. All babies in this house are insane in the membrane."

As Joe raced to the dining room for food, Pete flopped beside Patrick, grabbing Ben out of Patrick's lap and tickling him lightly. Ben giggled.

"They like you," Pete said with a smile, nudging Patrick in the side. Patrick sighed and made sure Freddie stopped chewing too much of his hair. "Welcome to the Wentz family."

"He's my uncle," Vinnie said from the ground, pressing the back of his head against Patrick's foot for a brief moment. "I like him."

"I thought you were asleep," Patrick accused and Vinnie snored even louder than before.

"I like him too," Pete informed Vinnie, and smiled widely. "I'm pretty glad he's family now. He can't get rid of me, _not ever_."

"Oh god," Patrick breathed and settled Freddie more comfortably in his lap, making sure he wasn't jostling Vinnie too much. Being piled on like this wasn't bad, actually. It was... kind of nice. Stifling, but nice. "That sounds more like the end of a normal life for me."

"Yeah." Pete tucked himself into Patrick's side and sighed happily. "It is."

_fin_


End file.
